Waking Up
by Emzog
Summary: A young human Hunter is pulled back into the world of the living in the midst of Old Russia. This is where it all started.


_My interpretation of what the resurrection process would be like for my Guardian. We aren't given much solid information on Ghosts, the Light, Guardians, or how the little buggers bring the long-dead back to life, so take this with a grain of salt._

* * *

The first thing she felt was the cold, biting and stinging. Working its way into stiff muscles and groaning bones. She jerked, gasped, dragged in a ragged mouthful of cutting air, grasping at the snow beneath her hands. Boots scraping against metal, head pressed back into the hard-packed dirt, shaking uncontrollably.

The first thing she saw was stars, clear and blindingly bright, through the rusted frame of an old skylight. Colours blurred together, shapes spinning and jumping. She rolled over and heaved, retching uselessly, a few drops of saliva falling to the ground. Empty stomach clenching as she screwed her eyes shut against the barrage of visuals.

The first thing she smelled was rust. Decay, old dust and crisp snow. Grass and pollen, the lingering aroma of death. Smoke, oil, burning. She gasped and inhaled deeply, falling back again and raising trembling hands to her face. Chest heaving as she took in another long, slow breath through flaring nostrils. She knew what each scent belonged to before she even knew her name.

The first thing she heard was a gunshot. Distant, far off. It shattered the silence and nearly made her scream as she clamped her palms over her ears. That single piece of input kickstarting a flood of sound. Birds, insects, the deafening rustle of a thousand blades of grass. Her own breathing, the blood pounding in her ears. The quiet whirr of technology.

"Guardian, try to stay still. Let your body adjust."

She spluttered, eyes snapping open in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the speaker, before groaning and pressing her palm over her face to block out the swirling mess of colours and shapes.

"What... What is..."

Her voice was hoarse, croaking, dry, and strained with disuse. She didn't sound like herself at all. After a moment's contemplation, she wondered what herself _did_ sound like.

She lay there for what felt like hours. Her breathing slowly calming, tremors settling and pain receding as her mind became used to handling so much information, so much sensory input, after lying dormant for so long. Eventually, she braved the removal of her hand from her eyes. She blinked in the dazzling light, and finally focused on the machine that hovered near her.

It was big enough to fit in her palm, its outer shell a clean, sterile shade of white. In the quiet, she could hear the soft whirring of its processors as a large blue eye focused on her. Optical receptor, she reminded herself, not eye. It was a machine, a drone of some sort.

"What is happening?" She croaked, reaching up to grasp the edge of the skylight and slowly heaving herself up into a sitting position. Trying to ignore the urge to retch as her whole world moved. She was lying across the back seat of a car, she realized dimly, or at least what the back seat would have been if the vehicle wasn't a creaking husk. Decayed and stripped away until it was just a shell pressed against the cold, unforgiving earth beneath. It groaned and buckled slightly under her weight, rust flaking off beneath her fingers and staining her gloves.

"It is going to be disorientating for a while. You have been dead for a long time, you probably won't remember anything." It intoned calmly. Its voice was male, that was for sure, and it drew out its words deliberately. If her every sense wasn't on fire she might've been lulled to sleep. Instead she peered out of one of the windows at the landscape beyond.

"How?"

Her voice was barely above a whisper this time, throat tight and aching from the effort of speech. The wreck was lying on the side of a gravel path that curved away through the forest on a slight incline. The tall trees were relatively sparse, yellowed grass poking out through gaps in the snow amongst the worn trunks.

"The Traveler's Light. You are now a Guardian, and I am your Ghost."

The Traveler. A Guardian. Ghosts. Everything clicked into place, and she relaxed, shoulders slumping. She knew what these were. She didn't know how she knew, when her name and her history were so lost to her now, but she knew. It felt right, it felt... safe. With a grunt, she pulled herself onto her knees and looked her Ghost in the eye.

"Where?"

"Follow me, and be careful. The Fallen are hunting tonight. We need to find you proper shelter, put on your helmet."

She blinked, glancing down at the armoured headpiece that had rolled onto the ground when she sat up. She pulled it on, automatically checking the filter that covered her mouth and nose, before sliding the goggles over her eyes and clasping them in place firmly. Her Ghost was already on the move, gliding out of one of the gaping doors and beginning to climb the slope she had woken up on.

With a grunt of effort she crawled out and stood, wobbling after the machine unsteadily. Every step she took with more confidence, not so much relearning the use of her limbs as remembering. Soon she was jogging, keeping to the shadows and slight cover of the forest a few meters off the path, sheltering from the harsh light of a near-full moon. Letting the Ghost roam ahead while she reflected on the night's events, and struggled to remember anything but dream-like flashes and random images.

None of it made sense, it was all barely coherent. She remembered the scope of her sniper, the kick against her shoulder as she fired at… something. She remembered her knife, slick with blood. She vaguely remembered the last few seconds of her death, staring up at nothing as soft darkness swept her up. The Traveler, she remembered that too, immense and comforting, the idea startlingly clear in contrast with any of her other strained recollections. There was a woman with green eyes and copper-brown hair, too. Was that last one her? She wasn't sure.

Then the niggling question that had been hovering just beneath the surface ever since she had woken up took form.

What was her name? Who was she?

_What_ was she?


End file.
